Former Bay City woman charged with falsely claiming son was kidnapped likely to plead

View full sizeLathan Goumas | The Bay City Times
Kayla Bilyeu walks away from the podium after and arraignment hearing at the Bay County Court Facility in Bay City, MI. on Friday August 5, 2011. Bilyeu is charged with filing a false police report and faces up to four years in prison.

BAY CITY — A former Bay City woman charged with making up her baby’s kidnapping is likely to enter a plea rather than go before a jury.

Kayla M. Bilyeu, 24, is charged with false report of a felony, which is itself a felony punishable by up to four years in prison.

Bay County Prosecutor Kurt C. Asbury said his office extended Bilyeu an offer that if she pleads guilty as charged, prosecutors will agree to a one-year delayed sentence.

“If she successfully completes that, we would agreed to reduce the charge to false report of a misdemeanor,” Asbury said.

Bilyeu’s attorney, Kenneth W. Malkin, said today that his client had agreed to the deal. If she does receive the delayed sentence and the charge is then reduced to a misdemeanor, she will avoid having a felony conviction on her record, Malkin said.

Bilyeu is to plead at 1:30 p.m. on Nov. 7 in Bay County Circuit Court, Malkin said.

Authorities charged Bilyeu after she reportedly called 911 in the wee hours of July 21, claiming her infant son had been taken from her and her fiancé’s home and left in the backyard of their apartment at 105 E. Indiana St. in Bay City.

Bilyeu allegedly told responding police she woke to her son crying, but was unable to find him. She woke her 34-year-old fiancé — the baby’s father — and he found the unharmed child swaddled in a blanket outside, court records show.

During another interview with police on July 28, Bilyeu allegedly confessed to having concocted the whole story. She said she and her fiancé had been fighting recently and she placed their child outside their home in order to scare him. The baby was only outside for a few minutes, she added, according to police reports contained in court documents.

Bilyeu said at her Aug. 5 arraignment that she and her son now live with her father in Port Huron. Bilyeu is free on a personal recognizance bond.